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Notice, Notification
Discouraging the anti-social behaviours of dog owners through actions that many other people would consider anti-social, even if it involves graffiting one's own wall. The close proximity of the words to where the dog-defecation takes place is a nice touch and shows the effort of the writer.
Signage typically includes information about the authority of the sign-poster e.g. 'the park is locked after 6pm' 'by order of the mayor of Brighton'. Who has what 'right' to post what infrormation where? By whose social/legal/moral authority? How is this information perceived by the signage readers? (How) are behaviours affected? And how can affects be multiplied through other factors - such as the presense of a remote control camera?
Writing from Tokyo | March 16, 2006 | Permalink
Comments
In my childhood in conservative Southern Ontario (and in a conservative time in our culture, before South Park and Howard Stern), our neighbor had hand painted sign that politely instructed people to pick up their Dog Chit. It was the only use of that word any of us ever saw. We knew what he meant, but somehow, it was "okay" to swear because he didn't actually write the word.
Somewhere in my flickr photos is an image from Hong Kong in both Chinese and English and the translation referred to the substance as "excret" - a noun. More of an amusing artifact of bad translation.
In both cases, very polite.
My favorite in my current neighborhood (especially now that I'm a dog owner and walker) is "You Poop, You Scoop" - and I often imagine disclaiming that I personally did not poop on their lawn. The sign conflates the behavior of the dog and the one who is responsible for the dog.
Posted by: Steve Portigal at March 16, 2006 8:51 AM
In Geneva, there are lots of similar messages tagged on walls like "PLS KEEP GENEVA CLEAN" (both in french and english), check here for instance: http://flickr.com/photos/nnova/26632532/
Posted by: nicolas at March 16, 2006 5:42 PM